The Keysme Mars 03 is one of the most unique mechanical keyboards I’ve ever seen. Themed after space exploration, its appearance is equal parts spaceship and custom mechanical keyboard. With a fully aluminum chassis and some of the best attention to detail I’ve encountered, there’s nothing else like it. It also offers a great typing and gaming experience thanks to its smart design, pre-lubed switches, and tri-mode wireless connectivity. At $330, it’s middle of the road for custom keyboard pricing but is more than a little original.
Specifications
- Current Price: $330 (Keysme)
Keysme Mars 03 - Design and Highlights
Keysme has been around for a while but first came into the mainstream with its Lunar 01 mechanical keyboard. It launched to Kickstarter with a modest $40,000 HK goal (about $5,100 USD). Its unique spaceship design, complete with fidget spinner magnetic “rockets” and an RGB sound meter along its top, garnered it a groundswell of support, 8X’ing its goal, ending at $322,410 HK raised. Since then, it has been advertised to me nearly weekly on Facebook, so I was intimately familiar with the keyboard when the company reached out about its next project, the Mars 03.
The Mars 03 is the Lunar 01 on steroids. It combines all of the creativity of the Lunar and meshes it with custom mechanical keyboards. It continues with the space exploration theme but takes it to the next level with a full aluminum chassis complete with spaceship-like tilt feet, an LCD screen, a joystick, and an exposed, highly decorated switch plate. Internally, it uses a gasket mount design and layers of sound dampening, sound enhancing foam.
The keyboard uses a 75% layout, which retains a function row and arrow keys but does away with all but a single column of navigation keys to provide a compact footprint. It’s a good middle ground between work and gaming by leaving plenty of space for the mouse hand while also providing most of the keys typically found on an office-friendly TKL. The keys that are missing are nearly all available as secondary functions by holding the FN key.
What really strikes me about this keyboard is how “all in” it goes on its theme. The case is composed of multiple layered parts that fasten together to hold it steady. The side frame fastens around the edges to hold the top and bottom together. The frame is intricately CNC-milled out of aluminum and zinc and comes in black, brown, and light blue. There are tons of small embellishments, angles and contours, slots and loops around fasteners, that bring it to life.
Those embellishments exist throughout the keyboard. The back has this neat angular pattern and the feet pop out like the landing gear on a spaceship. The switch plate is decorated with golden circuit traces that peek out from behind the keycaps. Even the screws are slightly oxidized to give them an intentionally worn look. It’s very overstated and because of that won’t be for everyone, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not well done.
Back on the top of the keyboard, I was surprised to find that it sports a 5-way joystick as well as a small LCD screen. By default, the joystick acts as a volume control when tilted up or down, track control when tilted left or right, and mutes media when clicked. It can also be used to control the screen, which provides information on time and date, battery level, connection method, and your current lock modes. Toggling through its screens reveals that it can also act as a system monitor, displaying resource usage and temperature information, as well as display custom GIFs.
Internally, it takes its cues from the trends that have taken over the custom keyboard scene in the last few years. It has a layer of plate foam to isolate the sound of the switches, IXPE foam to give it a poppy, marbly sound, PET plastic sheeting to enhance the impact of the PE, and a layer of PCB foam which sits in the case below it. The gaskets are also nice and thick to give the keyboard a very reactive and soft typing experience.
The keyboard also comes with your choice of Keysme x Gateron tactile Weightlessness or linear Mars switches. Both options come pre-lubed and are long-poled for a higher pitched, poppier sound signature. The linear switch is designed for gaming with a lightweight 45gf actuation force and high 1.2mm actuation point. The Weightlessness switch is unironically heavier at 50g and has a standard 2mm actuation point.
The documentation quotes these as having an 800,000,000 click lifespan which, frankly, doesn’t seem like it could be right. That’s eight times Gateron’s other switches — and roughly 25 years of pressing each switch one a second. With that said, even a 100M click switch is likely to outlive us, so we’ll never know for sure.
If you don’t like them, or would rather bring your own, the keyboard also supports hot-swapping switches, so there’s no soldering required. You simply pull the existing switches out and press new ones into place. =
The keyboard supports proprietary Keysme Console software, which is only just okay. It gets the job done, lets you remap keys, record macros, customize the screen with GIFs and pictures, and personalize the keyboard’s lighting. It’s not as polished as the softwares coming from the biggest brands out there, like Logitech or Corsair, but it does what it needs to and saves your changes to the keyboard’s onboard storage so you can shut it down again.
Keysme is releasing a number of accessories to accompany this release. Two keycaps sets will be available, the Space Exploration and Mission to Mars sets. The first is a dye-sub PBT set that goes beyond pure color and applies texture to its keys. It’s one of the more unique sets I’ve seen and matches the theme well, though I much prefer the second set. Mission to Mars is a similarly dye-sub PBT set but with translucent sides to better show the RGB lighting. The color also really matches the theme well.
Along with this, the company is releasing magnetic fidget spinners akin to the Lunar 01. They mount on either side of the keyboard and can be removed when you need something other than a keyboard to occupy your fingers. They’re made of metal and have two separate rings that spin like a turbine on the bottom. There’s also a window that shows a spinning rod in the center. I admit to finding these a little gimmicky and don’t like the way they look on the side of the keyboard, but it adds to the space theme well. I also have to admit that I’ve played with these far more than I ever would have thought. I just wish they were easier to spin in place as the current magnets make them likely to wobble or pop out when attempted.
Keysme is also releasing matching palm rests for all three colors and they are genuinely the coolest, most unique palm rests I’ve ever seen. They have a metal frame and glass top revealing a Mars scene within. The rest is filled with glitter and a liquid that allows it to flow like one of those flowing sand art toys you’ll sometimes find on bookshelves.
A matching deskmat will also be available.
The problem is that the accessories are quite expensive. Both the fidget spinners and the palm rest are $63 each. I can kind of see it for the palm rest but the fidget spinners seem like a better fit for an included accessory.
Keysme Mars 03 - Assembly
Assembling the Keysme Mars 03 is very easy. It comes mostly built with all of the foams, switches, and stabilizers installed and pre-lubed. All you have to do is install keycaps, which is all the easier because of the hotswap sockets. You can simply press both into place, no tools required. The only thing you may need to do otherwise is add a bit of additional lube to the stabilizers if you have any residual rattle. Mine did not but this goes with the territory for any pre-lubed mechanical keyboard.
Keysme Mars 03 - Performance and Typing Demo
Divisive though its design surely is, the Keysme Mars 03 feels great to use. It’s clear that the designers behind it put a lot of time into developing its sound, feel, and responsiveness.
The gasket mount implementation is exceptionally well done. There’s more movement here than many custom keyboards I’ve tested but it doesn’t stray into too much movement where it can become distracting. The typing experience is soft with a rounded, deep sound signature. It has what keyboard enthusiasts would call “thock” as well as the “foamy” sound from all of the included sound sheets. Like all custom keyboards, you can remove these to match your tastes, but doing so will require disassembling the keyboard, which is more involved than many others of its kind.
The switches are very good. I was sent a sample with the Mars linears pre-installed and really like them. Despite their high actuation point, I didn’t find them too sensitive to type with and they were perfect for gaming. These switches are consistent and well-lubed, so they’re smooth and uniform across the entire keyboard. They offer a long-pole sound but it’s not as accentuated as many. It’s a long pole for gamers that also want a deep sounding keyboard.
You have to be a certain kind of person to mesh with its design. Surely, the spaceship theme will turn some readers off immediately. I agree that the fidget spinners do add a certain toy-like quality to it. But I’m a sucker for unique and creative products and it’s hard to argue that this is anything but. Keysme has crafted what may just be the most unique keyboard I’ve ever tested — and I’m into the hundreds at this point.
I’m happy to see that it’s not style over substance. I feared that might be the case. But truly, it offers a typing and gaming experience that’s actually very competitive. Its 2.4GHz connection held solid when gaming wirelessly and Bluetooth was similarly easy when typing on my laptop.
I would drop wireless in a second for VIA support, though. Perhaps that flies in the face of its technological inspirations but while the software works fine, VIA just provides so many more options.
Have a listen to how it sounds in the typing sample above.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think the Keysme Mars 03 is surprisingly great. It’s a keyboard you might find aboard the Nostromo, and holy cow, if you’re a sci-fi geek (meant in the most positive way), it just doesn’t get better than this. It’s a case where all of the small touches bring the whole thing together. I wish it were a bit cheaper, but given that you’re also getting switches and stabilizers, it’s mostly pre-built and ready to use out of the box (just add keycaps), and just how unique and well thought-out it is, as well as the fact that such a strong design inherently targets a smaller group of potential customers, it’s not over the top expensive either. If you’re the kind of gamer wants this type of design, the Mars 03 is likely to be your next favorite keyboard.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
